I come across an interview of Skip Williams about the early days at TSR. Always a good read to gain different perspectives on what was going on in-house, as that's a key to the design choices made, that determined the direction the game eventually went in. Anyway James Maliszewski poses an interesting question here;

JM - 6. For many years, you acted as "the Sage," providing official answers to questions about the rules of D&D in the pages of Dragon, a role you continue to assume for Kobold Quarterly. I remember Gary once complaining that, in the early days, fans of D&D would call him at his home to ask him rules questions and he was baffled as to why anyone needed him to come up with answers, a feeling many early TSR staffers apparently shared. Do you see any contradiction between the desire of many fans for official answers to their questions and the belief of many early designers that players should come up with their own answers?"

SW Responds - "It's a huge contradiction. The early designers were wrong. It comes down to this: If you want to be in control of your character, you have to have some idea how anything you might try is going to come out. and you can't know that unless you have some idea of how the rules are going to handle the situation. If the GM is making capricious decisions about what happens in the game, you're always shooting in the dark and you have no real control over your character at all. Think of how hard it would be to, say, learn to ride a bicycle if the laws of physics were constantly in flux. The game just works better if the DM and players have similar expectations about how the rules handle things."

A bit further on Skip also says -
"The referee is there to keep the game moving. As Patton once said, a good answer today is better than a perfect answer next week.

A well-written rules set is the best friend a DM can have. It helps manage the player's expectations and gives the DM a leg to stand on when things don't go the players' way."

The key game design element here is;
If the GM is making capricious decisions about what happens in the game, you're always shooting in the dark and you have no real control over your character at all...

I never understood why players would seek to have rules questions (or conflicts) answered outside of their gaming circle by someone other than the designated game GM. Presumeably the game GM was the person most familair with the rules as written, and had a range of experience that would allow them to quickly make an adequate (If not ideal) ruling in a game situation that would allow the game to proceed.

Two notable points about all this;

1) There's never going to be an ideal set of rules for tabletop play or for online play for that matter. One advantage of tabletop play is that the rules can be easily modified to suit the game (and the players). The flip side is that the rules can easily be modified (or intrepreted) to suit the GM as well. This is both a strength and weakness of tabletop play. In some game worlds, the laws of physics will always be in a flux, so the players need to know this before they get too involved in that game so that they know how best to handle their characters actions, choices, and motivations.

 
2) Computer games, like MMO's for example, are rules and ruling transparent. The players don't see the rules and the detailed mechanics of how the rules are sussed out. All they see are the effects the rules have on how the game is played, so they can work out an optimized play strategy much quicker, than compared with a standard tabletop game where the GM brings a different range of experience (and personal preferences) to the table. This is a strength of MMO's making them easier to play at the expense of limiting the players to a fewer options than are available to tabletop RPG players.

My take away, unsurprisingly, is: "Gosh, all this wanting codified rules has nothing to do with 4e and everything to do with the players who have been players for decades."

Seanchai

4E isn't a cause. It's a symptom.

For me, it all comes down to how much you know and trust your DM (and thus in part how competent the DM is to start with).

"If the GM is making capricious decisions about what happens in the game, you're always shooting in the dark and you have no real control over your character at all. Think of how hard it would be to, say, learn to ride a bicycle if the laws of physics were constantly in flux. The game just works better if the DM and players have similar expectations about how the rules handle things."

Emphasis mine. Sure: IF a DM sucks.

What if the DM doesn't suck, though?
What if the DM can apply common sense on particular situations to make fair rulings?

Fact is, designs now assume that the "average DM" (which I have never personally met, but anyway...) makes capricious, nonsensical decisions based on his own personal, chaotic aims and whims. I.e. the "average DM" sucks. So instead of teaching to people how to be great DMs over time, modern designs provide them with rules that frame game play more and more. The DM is now here just to "move things along". That's designing according to the lowest common denominator. The Tyranny of Fun. And it sucks.

Quote from: Benoist;3113034E isn't a cause. It's a symptom.

For me, it all comes down to how much you know and trust your DM (and thus in part how competent the DM is to start with).

"If the GM is making capricious decisions about what happens in the game, you're always shooting in the dark and you have no real control over your character at all. Think of how hard it would be to, say, learn to ride a bicycle if the laws of physics were constantly in flux. The game just works better if the DM and players have similar expectations about how the rules handle things."

Emphasis mine. Sure: IF a DM sucks.

What if the DM doesn't suck, though?
What if the DM can apply common sense on particular situations to make fair rulings?

Fact is, designs now assume that the "average DM" (which I have never personally met, but anyway...) makes capricious, nonsensical decisions based on his own personal, chaotic aims and whims. I.e. the "average DM" sucks. So instead of teaching to people how to be great DMs over time, modern designs provide them with rules that frame game play more and more. The DM is now here just to "move things along". That's designing according to the lowest common denominator. The Tyranny of Fun. And it sucks.

Understand, the symptom that is 4e was created by runaway assholes from Way Back When.  Everybody ran in to that one guy who should never have been DMing - whether he misinterpreted the 1e rules to read "Screw the players, screw the players!" or whether he had some ridiculous Perv Greenwood like GREAT STORY filled with more-important-than-thou NPCs walking around making the PCs totally superfluous - he never should have picked up the dice and said "I'm running a D&D game, wanna join"?

The net result is the assumption by the hurt feeling crowd that all DMs are that way.  Worse, even if these jokers didn't run into that sort of DM, their precious fragile egos were shattered all to pieces by DMs who (gasp) didn't think much of the Drow as a PC race, and didn't want to hear six pages of backstory before the player even joined up with the party at the tavern.

If that makes any sense (and I'm not sure it does).

If you build your whole game-writing persona on the idea that the rules-as-written are more important than the people in the game group, as Gygax did, you have got to expect people to ring you up asking about rules, as Gygax got.

Ain't nothin' to do with the GMs involved.

The thing is, Skip's right.  The common player just wants to play his guy and no more, but when the common GM fucks it up that's when the appeals to the publisher or designer begin- assuming that they have the supreme rules mastery necessary to bring the errant GM to heel.  When the GM gets in the way of the player enjoying how cool his guy is, and it's not in ink, fur starts flying unless there's communication and trust made beforehand to establish the variance.

I didn't want to post this on Grognardia, but it tells a lot about Skip that he not only volunteered to answer inane questions about rules from mouthbreathing morons, but he remained at the job from 1987 to 2002. This is basically someone satisfied to do customer support for 15 years. 15 years.

Yeah, god forbid that someone ask an official source for thier take on the rules and god forbid that someone stay in the role for 15 years. Seriously, Skip Willaims had his problems but he was leagues better than the godawful Andy Collins and he had to deal with the pure arbitrarium that is old school D&D. That he enjoyed it for so long, all I can say is kudos to him.

I dunno, I was glad there was a column I as a DM could use adjucating what the hell a Belt of Giant strength does if combined with Gauntlets of Ogre Power in 2e.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;311335Yeah, god forbid that someone ask an official source for thier take on the rules and god forbid that someone stay in the role for 15 years.

God forbid indeed. That sort of attitude - that rules/world canon are sacrosanct holy writ - has fostered a climate that damaged the potential of roleplaying games, and shifted their focus from collective creativity towards a commodified form of entertainment.

The proper answer to 95% of Sage Advice questions is simply: "Grow some balls already and come up with your own goddamn solution." :emot-clint:

Quote from: Melan;311357God forbid indeed. That sort of attitude - that rules/world canon are sacrosanct holy writ - has fostered a climate that damaged the potential of roleplaying games, and shifted their focus from collective creativity towards a commodified form of entertainment.

The proper answer to 95% of Sage Advice questions is simply: "Grow some balls already and come up with your own goddamn solution." :emot-clint:

I occasionally skimmed those, but ended up just as baffled.  "My player/DM is doing this, and I don't like it!"  Answer:  Stop being an asshole.

Quote from: Melan;311357The proper answer to 95% of Sage Advice questions is simply: "Grow some balls already and come up with your own goddamn solution." :emot-clint:

Yes, but that is not in the spirit of the Afterword to the AD&D1e DMG, or most of the rest of Gygax's writing. And Dragon was his baby. So...

What it comes down to is that if you want to Cartman out and say, "respect mah authoritah!" then people are going to be asking you about every pissy little thing.

Quote from: Melan;311357God forbid indeed. That sort of attitude - that rules/world canon are sacrosanct holy writ - has fostered a climate that damaged the potential of roleplaying games, and shifted their focus from collective creativity towards a commodified form of entertainment.

The proper answer to 95% of Sage Advice questions is simply: "Grow some balls already and come up with your own goddamn solution." :emot-clint:

Yeah, because that attitude killed RPGs and that advice would have totally worked without a doubt. Do you dare even prove that?

Quote from: Melan;311357God forbid indeed. That sort of attitude - that rules/world canon are sacrosanct holy writ - has fostered a climate that damaged the potential of roleplaying games, and shifted their focus from collective creativity towards a commodified form of entertainment.

Wait a minute...
Isn´t that´s EXACTLY what´s happening with the NeOD&D crowd? Fuck, they are even starting to write Fan Fiction, for cryin´out loud.

Apart from that, I do think DMG-exegesis is a valid, fun and indeed important part of D&D history. Just look at the thousands of threads that discuss how it really was back then, how it was played etc., what RAW actually would have been...
 As an armchair RPG-historian, I find Skip´s column to be of utmost value.

And you kmight know the K&K Alehouse, the festering spawning grounds of the true disciples of Gary (but only the Gary betweem 1978 and 1984, it seems, they are picky with their canon!).

Really, I find more depravity in certain pontificating blogs and purity-driven Forums, that I can find in a thirteen year old DM asking questions about how to resolve the complex interaction of magical effects and items.

Wow, I think this is the first time I got agitated by a post from yours.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;311363Yeah, because that attitude killed RPGs and that advice would have totally worked without a doubt. Do you dare even prove that?

Give me a reliable methodology, an appropriate budget and time, and I will. Until then, we will have to put up with educated guesses and messageboard posts, I am afraid, and stop asking for unattainable "proof". :wizard:

Quote from: SettembriniWait a minute...
Isn´t that´s EXACTLY what´s happening with the NeOD&D crowd? Fuck, they are even starting to write Fan Fiction, for cryin´out loud.

Some segments of that crowd can be doctrinaire beyond the limits of reason, and have been that way since Year Zero, yeah. So? This is news how, exactly?

Really. I never thought the base rules-fuckery that populated the Sage Advice column would have so many stalwart defenders. Because no, we don't need an official response to "what if my blade-singer is polymorphed to a female dwarf and, since she is no longer an elf, can she use her bladesinger abilities and of course can I keep my 18/00 Strength or do female stat limits apply?" Maybe what gaming would have needed is a generous helping of common sense, and advice to apply it liberally when piddling conundrums come up at the table.